Snow and cold: Weather news with Paul Huttner

CATHY WURZER: Let's talk about Mother Nature for just a few minutes here. Mother Nature-- she's always full of surprises. Here in Minnesota, we've gone from above average temperatures to below average temperatures with a lot of snow-- lots of snow, almost two feet on the North Shore. Wow. What's in store next? Let's ask MPR's chief meteorologist Paul Huttner. Hey, welcome back.

PAUL HUTTNER: Hey. Good to be here, Cathy. Can you believe it was almost 70 degrees a week ago?

CATHY WURZER: I forgot. It was great, and now it's gone. What is the deal with the snow machine on Lake Superior? Did I see that right? Silver Bay almost has two feet?

PAUL HUTTNER: You did. I feel like we're living in a snow globe this week across Minnesota. Every time somebody shakes it, the snow picks up again. Here's the deal. They've had some prolific lake effect-- what we call a fire hose lake effect where these strands of lake effect snow kind of narrow, head into the shore, and with the subtle shifts in the wind, they move a little left, a little right, kind of like how a fire hose would spray.

And it's produced some prolific lake effect snow totals. Here's a couple of totals. Three miles east of Finland, 21 inches of snow. Halfway up the Gunflint Trail, around 20 inches. And then near Silver Bay about four miles northwest, 24 inches-- that's right, you saw it. Two feet of snow. Lacs Lake in that area got 10 inches of snow this morning according to the Duluth National Weather Service.

There's a little mesolow-- a tiny little low pressure system-- sitting right off the North Shore still producing some significant snow between about Two Harbors and Silver Bay, and they're still under a winter storm warning. You are up there. Two Harbors to Silver Bay, if you're listening-- through midnight tonight could get as much as seven more inches.

CATHY WURZER: What? Usually you expect a lot of snow on the South Shore. I mean, yes, the North Shore does get snow, especially in the higher elevations. That is absolutely true. But when you think big snow, you think South Shore.

PAUL HUTTNER: Yes, you're right about that. And lake effect snow is really fascinating if you look at the atmospheric mechanics because you need two main elements. You need the relatively warm lake waters-- and we've had that with temperatures on Superior in the 40s, even mid to upper 40s still-- and then colder air, temperatures in the teens and 20s. You need that temperature contrast-- 20, 25, 30 degrees to get these lake effect bands.

And this is what happens when they come from the east across Lake Superior back to the west toward the North Shore. Now, you think they've got it going on up north. Buffalo, New York and areas there are going to get a major lake effect blast. Those water temperatures are in the 50s.

We're getting a cold front coming through. It'll push temperatures down into the 20s and teens, so a huge temperature contrast. Cathy, they're talking about three, four, maybe five feet of snow in areas of southwest New York over the next few days, so this is going to be a prolific lake effect snow event on the Southern and Eastern shores of the Great Lakes.

CATHY WURZER: Oh my gosh. Talk about hunkering down. Digging out? It would take days to dig out from that.

PAUL HUTTNER: It will, yeah.

CATHY WURZER: Wow. So let's look at the forecast here. So we have a weekend coming up here. Is it going to get cold?

PAUL HUTTNER: It is. It's 33 now in the Twin Cities. It's slushy out there. The roads mainly wet. That's the good news. Get stuff cleared off today because it's going to freeze tonight. We're down to maybe about 20 by morning, 25 tomorrow.

And then Friday, we're in the teens state wide. We'll drop to about 10 by Friday morning in the Twin Cities. Highs in the low to mid 20s this weekend. Lows around 10 or 8 above.

So it's a prolonged freeze as we head through the weekend. Good news, though. If you like milder weather, we're back into the upper 30s, maybe even some 40s next week for Thanksgiving, Cathy. A couple of models have hinted we may even approach 50 again in Southern Minnesota.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, OK. That's definitely weather whiplash then although decent travel for Thanksgiving though, which is positive.

PAUL HUTTNER: It looks like it. Most of the temperatures should be above freezing. So even if we get a little bit of snow in there, hopefully the roads would be mainly wet around the upper Midwest.

CATHY WURZER: OK, good. Two minutes left here. Let's talk about Climate Cast. What are you talking about tomorrow on Climate Cast?

PAUL HUTTNER: Yeah. Jeff Masters who works with Yale Climate team and Yale-- he has done a lot of work in areas of the links between climate change and drought. And as we've talked about before, Cathy, the Mississippi River-- record drought this year, low water levels Memphis down through Arkansas. People can walk on the river bottom like a half a mile.

And 60% of US grain is shipped through that Mississippi River, so it's been a big economic impact. I talked with Jeff about that. And just how do we link these quick flash droughts with climate change? A very interesting process because basically you're speeding up the hydrologic cycle.

It's like you put the burner on the pan on super high. You pour in a little water. It evaporates so quickly. So we're seeing these things happen faster, and we'll talk about that tomorrow on Climate Cast between about 3:00 and 6:00 PM on All Things Considered.

CATHY WURZER: You also get Climate Cast wherever you get your podcasts. Say, by the way, are we in a flash drought, or has it gone on too long now?

PAUL HUTTNER: Well, flash drought, I think, refers more to the speed with which the onset of the drought-- like how quickly it develops. And that's certainly happened this year, and we're in trouble, Cathy. We're down 10 inches.

This snow will not help us much around Central and Southern Minnesota. The ground is going to freeze, so I think we're going to look at spring, and we're going to really need a wet spring to catch up for farmers next year and for lakes and rivers.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Paul Huttner, thanks for taking time to talk with us. We appreciate it. Thank you.

PAUL HUTTNER: You too.

CATHY WURZER: Talk to you later.

PAUL HUTTNER: Thanks, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: That is our chief meteorologist Paul Huttner. For more weather news, by the way, check out his Updraft blog. You can find that at mprnews.org. Great images and graphics that are explaining what's happening with the weather.